There he goes again. Crack New York Times reporter Chuck Duhigg is once again spreading misinformation and bias about the skilled nursing facility industry (front page article in the business section of the Times today). Referencing his “report” in the Times again, Chuck once again states that private equity firms have purchased “thousands” of nursing homes, when he knows that this is just not true. But then again, the Times is often not known for going after the truth; rather, its political agenda often drives the “news” stories, and it is unfortunate that not enough people stand up to this pervasive bias.
The hearings in yesterday’s House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and Senate Special Committee on Aging were a blatant attempt to show one side of the story. In Chuck’s story today, he referred to the one industry representative as “a nursing home executive,” without disclosing that he is also a Registered Nurse, a licensed nursing home administrator and the VP for clinical services at a major chain. I think this individual knows a lot more about what really goes on in a skilled nursing facility than Chuck or any of the members of the committee. The Times article also criticized the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s very recent study that showed there was no evidence to support the claim that quality of care suffers when a facility is owned by a private investment or equity firm, partly because the study covered just three years. Well hello, the vast majority of private equity investing in skilled nursing has been in the past three years. Should we go back 10 years and get mythical data?
And we love the absurd quote in the article from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, saying it is a lot easier to find information about washing machines than long-term care facilities. First of all, it’s not the first time he has said this (but we all need to use old material at times), and while a Maytag is a Maytag and can be easily scrutinized, analyzed, tested and compared, it is a machine that has thousands that are exactly alike. There really are no nursing homes that are exactly alike, and what the Senator misses is that what goes on in a nursing home changes every day, and the nursing home is made up of more than 100 people who do not do the exact same thing each day and the needs of the residents change every day. Clothes get washed the same way every day, but you don’t put people in a washing machine, Senator. Can the quality of care in our nation’s nursing homes be improved? Yes. Should it be improved? Yes. But I would like to see the members of this committee spend a weekend working in one of these facilities before they start a new campaign investigating the industry, a campaign supported by the SEIU, the trial lawyers and, of course, big Chuck.
